This is a basic expectation a man comes into marriage with that speaks respect to him. A man thinks that when he gets married his wife will be kind to him.

An area the Lord showed me I was not being kind was in my communication.

I thought I was communicating my needs by telling Todd what I didn’t like. As I read Eph. 4:15 “Instead, speaking the truth in love” the rebuke I heard from God was, “Kim, you are not communicating or speaking the truth in love, you are condemning.”

Who is motivated by negativity? My listing to my husband what I didn’t like, wasn’t creating in him a burning desire to love and cherish me. Rather, my continual pointing out of his short comings was weighing him down. I wouldn’t be surprised if he even wanted to avoid me. Who wouldn’t rather sit and watch TV than hear about how far short they are falling?

In the future, when I felt the need to communicate a more negative comment, I would try to sandwich the comment in something positive. There are plenty of things to compliment so I just need to include how much I am thankful for those before I point out a small area desiring change. This may sound manipulative, but I realized I like it when Todd softened a rebuke with a compliment so I will try to return the favor.

Todd will also often lighten up his request for change with a comment like, “I have probably never mentioned this before” or “I might be misreading this": and then onto his desire for me to change and irritating habit. It really helps.

I am much more likely to listen and desire to change with these opening comments than if he would start out with, “Why do you always…” or “it really bugs me when you..”

On a lighter note, My husband has often said, “A good wife laughs at her husband’s jokes.” This may sound silly, but the reality is a wife should be the one person her husband can count on being on his side.

We have a friend that is….well, over the top. He is not always appropriate in his comments or his timing. He has embarrassed me and I have been embarrassed for him. Yet, he has a beautiful wife that is always by his side. She will laugh with him and does not disconnect herself from him…ever. When we talk and he is not around, she brags on his good qualities. She is truly beautiful! I respect her and like her husband because of her faithful stance of being on his side.

My husband has a very dry sense of humor. I love it. He is funny and getting his jokes actually makes me feel smart. The unfortunate thing is when people don’t know him they may not know he is joking. I can do him good by laughing at his jokes so others to may know he is being funny. After all, “A good wife laughs at her husband’s jokes.”

Most of us feel too busy already so this verse seems like one we could just check off, but I ask what is keeping us so busy?

II Thes. 3:11 “We hear that some among you are idle; They are not busy; they are busybodies.”

Many of the time suckers these days…facebook, pinterest, texting, youtube, movies, tv, and phone calls all tend toward the busybody over being busy at home. We need to keep our priorities the priorities.

It is easy to let the urgent or the buzz of a phone pull us from what we claim is most important into what is exciting or interesting.

God

Husband /Family

House/Work

Friends/Entertainment

Does this list represent what we each desire our priorities to look like? But how often does the bottom of the list overtake the top of the list?

Our daughter did a devotional for her peers recently that addresses this point well:

Lately I have been struggling with putting God over everything. It’s not like I have purposely been putting things before God…they seem to just creep into God’s spot.I realized that it wasn’t “bad” activities or people, but it was more like my thoughts were constantly thinking of something other than God. Mostly school. Since this is my first year doing High School and it was pretty hard to get into the swing of things I just dismissed not giving time or thought to God. I used the excuse “I’m too busy” or “once I figure out how to balance everything I’ll spend more time with God.” But that’s the problem, I’ll always have things trying to have control of my time and thoughts, but no matter what, I need God to be the center. God is never too busy for me or puts me to the side saying “I’ll take care of you once I am done with putting this other family back together” or “I will be there for you after I heal this person from cancer.” God is always there for me and you. The least I can do is have God be the center of my life.

Colossians 1:17 “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

This verse clearly says that without putting God before all we fall apart, because He holds all things together. Putting God first look different for everyone, but it includes giving Him time out of our day to pray and read the Bible to stay connected. I would like to encourage you all to think of what you might be putting in the place of God, what is stealing His time, and surrender it to Him.

Let’s remember to be busy at home, while keeping the priorities the priority.

Our daughter did a talk about purity and she used a glass of water to show purity. But if a small spoonful of dirt is added, no longer is the water pure. Pure is an extreme word, it takes effort to be pure.

When we talked to our girls about purity we direct their focus with Proverbs 29:11 “Above all else guard your heart.”

One morning while reading about Jesus on the cross, I came to the part when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” In that very instant I realized I needed to do the same. The majority of the things that I held against my husband, he was unaware of what he had done.

I also noted that Jesus didn’t try to get the men to see what they were doing wrong, he just forgave them.

I had a friend that listened to her husband tell an embarrassing story about her. Much to my surprise, when he finished, she laughed and added some more funny details. As I observed this I thought, most wives I know (including me) would have been offended by the husband’s story. At the stories conclusion he would have looked over to a wife with pursed lips and glaring at him.

Right there it hit me how ugly the bitter woman is and how beautiful this woman looked. I wanted this beauty. That picture still helps me today, when I feel myself stiffening and eyes squinting, I scold myself, “ugly, ugly, you’re being ugly.”

More recently, another friend, I will call her Sally was sharing with me how her son and her were raising a butterfly. Her excitement was obvious. Sally’s husband stepped into the room and tried to make a pun by saying, “Wow, you must really be bored for that to be such a thrill.”

Her immediate retort was, “That’s no way to talk to a hard working mom.” There was no eye contact, just a sense of “you offend me and I’m not going to take it.” As the third party in this scenario it was clear to me that this husband had not wanted to hurt his wife. Granted he didn’t use great tact, but his goal was to join in with some light hearted teasing. All that was lost because this wife became bitter while assuming he was belittling her.

If I could rewrite Sally’s butterfly incident with an ending of believing the best or laughing at herself in response to her husband’s “you must be bored” pun, this is what I would have her say? “yes, I can see that I have learned to enjoy the simple things in life.” Or “Yea, next thing you know I will be analyzing the cob webs in the corners.”

Unfortunately, it is not often that any of us get a rewrite in real life, so as for me, I am praying for the Lord to keep me from the ugliness that comes from being bitter.

In other words, if we want to build attraction we must get rid of bitterness and forgive each other.

*Titus packed a lot in these three verses, next he says, “Be Self-controlled”

I was twenty-two years old before I learned I did not have to live by my emotions. Proverbs 29:11 puts it this way, “A fool gives full vent to her anger, but a wise wife keeps herself under control.”

Did you notice this verse does not say except at home behind closed doors?

Within the first few months of marriage we established fighting rules. Rules were needed because when I felt like I was losing an argument, my first reaction was to leave the room, slamming a door behind me. We agreed: no walking away, no door slamming, no yelling and try to stay on topic.

Often after these rules were made I would rock like a rocking horse in my chair, wanting very much to leave. Yet, our commitment kept me there until we worked through our differences.

Now days I don’t even desire to walk out; winning isn’t my goal any more—resolution is the focus.

How surprised Todd and I were when friends confessed to swearing at each other while fighting. Another couple had to get counseling because the wife was hitting and pulling her husband’s hair. A third couple admitted to going days without talking to each other waiting for the other person to apologize. These were close Christian friends, couples we respected.

If any of these scenarios are familiar, there is still hope and they do not have to be “normal”. I came into marriage thinking yelling, walking out and slamming doors were normal, but having fighting rules change that. Obviously, the rules don’t matter if we don’t uphold them. Thankfully, both Todd and I live by our rules, plus one more.

The last rule has kept us working long at understanding one another, but has at times had to be respectfully bent. The is: don’t let the sun go down on your anger. This is a Biblical command. Again, I give credit to Todd for upholding this rule and pursuing talking out a problem when I may have chosen to roll over.

When I speak of respectfully bending this rule, I mean agreeing to stop talking until the next day. There are times when we are so tired or our conversation is spinning in circles and we KNOW a good night’s sleep will help our communication more than demanding resolution right now. As long as we both agree, we post pone our discussion until the sun comes up the next day.

Honoring these rules has lessened the length of our conflicts dramatically—it is about “us” reconciling not about “I” getting my way or “me” winning.

When I think of training I know that means not doing what comes naturally. When I think of doing what comes naturally I think of five year olds playing soccer. Although the coach has tried to explain to them the different positions and rolls needed to play soccer the children still buzz around the field as a mass, wherever the ball goes the mass follows.

As wives if we try to love our husbands by what comes naturally we are about as affective as those five year old soccer players. But if we are trained and learn to play within our role, then the marriage flourishes.

God says, “my command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15: 12-13

That doesn’t sound very much like Hollywood love or romance novel love. When you hear ”love your husband” is the first thought you have to lay down your life for him? That is why it says the older women must TRAIN the younger women. The kind of love the Lord wants us to show is not what comes naturally, but what comes out of response to God’s love for me.

To love our husband we must lay our life down for him. To lay our life down is serving them. “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28.

Again we need to understand what this service looks like. If we just serve our husband out of our own strength, it becomes laden with expectations. We start to get bitter, start to want something back. Our thoughts become a burden, “Why can’t he just say ‘thank you’”, “All I do is give, when will he do something for me?”, “I’m tired; can’t he see I need help?”

But, if we serve our husband as an offering to the Lord in response to what God has done for us, it becomes laden with thankfulness. Thanks for the privilege of being a wife to this man.

So, we are to love our husband by laying down our life to serve them. The walls of our home provide our greatest realm of influence. Titus 3:14 “Our (wives) people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives.”

Providing daily necessities is a big part of being a wife. This verse is practical: do good, provide and be productive.Now loving our husband and loving our children look much different.

As the Bible says, we are our husband’s helper (Gen 2: 18) and we are our children’s teacher (Proverbs 6: 20)

Our role as a wife is to help our husband be all he can be. Loving him is being his number one fan. Our role as mom is to teach, train, guide and instruct, too often us wives mix up these roles and we want to teach our husbands and help our children. Take a minute and think about this……have the roles gotten switched for you?

If it is truly about “us” then “I” want to help my husband by serving him.

Nowhere in scripture does it tell us to teach our husbands. So when it comes to teaching what is good it is toward other women or children. This point I learned the hard way.

Early in our marriage, Todd and I would read the same chapter in the Bible and then discuss it. He had been brought up in a Christian home and had gone to church, AWANA and Bible camp all his life; I was a new Christian of about two years. To put it simply, I did not understand the wonderful workings of the Holy Spirit and I thought the Bible must speak to each of us identically. So in our discussing what a verse or passage meant to us, I would disagree with him. We would debate instead of share. It didn’t take long until we weren’t reading the same chapters. Todd lost interest in telling me what he was learning. Yep, I had torn down our communication with my own lips.

A few years back we were considering having some family devotions. I wanted to dictate the time, tell Todd what would work best. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit reminded me of our beginnings and how I had messed up our sharing before. Instead of making the time look like my image of family devotions I encouraged him to lead however he wanted. Now we often sit around the table after supper and Todd reads to us his journal from one year ago. First he shares his diary type entry, which explains what we did on that day a year ago. Secondly, he reads to us what verse he wrote down for the day and what his thoughts were regarding its application. What a wonderful way for him to inspire us and relate what God had taught him. All of this could have been lost if I would have insisted on doing things my way.

Another time it was good this tongue of mine took a rest, was when Todd started doing quiet times with our son. Oh how I wanted to help them get the most out of their time. Why do I think I know so much? Thankfully, I refrained. Our son loved his time with his dad and often relayed to me the verse they had discussed and were working on that day. Amazing! Their time doesn’t look anything like I would do, yet, it is perfect for bonding them to each other and to the Lord!

So, if you want your husband to be your family’s spiritual leader then my encouragement would be, learn from my mistake and don’t hinder any efforts your husband makes to lead the family. Stand back, give him room and enjoy the unique perspective he brings to inspiring the family.

Proverbs 3: 7 “Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and shun evil.”

If you think you are more spiritual than your husband…he knows that and feels defeated without even trying. Do not be a self proclaimed prophet. Being wises in your own eyes definitely lessens attraction.

I have always been surprised by how specific this verse is. Being addicted to much wine must be a bigger issue than I am aware. Still, I think there are many addictions that could be put in here. Whatever addiction or habit we have that separates us from God or brings Him dishonor could also fill this verse.

Yes, I brought an addiction into our marriage that like wine blurred my view and for years I denied I even did. The addiction I brought into our marriage was adding my interpretation to most everything Todd said or did. It didn’t really matter what he said because I would come to my own conclusions anyway. I was constantly being hurt by what I read into Todd’s comments or actions. My mind was a playground of negativity.

One day Todd sat me down and assured me he would not purposefully hurt me. He would really like me to believe the best about him. He would be truthful and we could trust each other’s yes to be yes and no, no. As this conversation continued, we agreed to believe the best about each other and not to allow ourselves to come to our own conclusions about what the other person “really” meant. If we thought there was more to a comment than what was said, we were to ask the other person. Wow. So simple, yet it was not my natural tendency.

This not only affected how I thought about Todd, it also affected how he responded to me. From this point on, if he asked me, “Are you ok?” and I mumbled “yes” he believe me. No more games. I had to communicate the truth if I wanted to keep our marriage strong.

I must admit, I tested the agreement and tried to see if he would keep asking if I said I was okay when I was obviously not. True to his word, after asking me once if I was okay, then he went on with life as if I really was okay. So I learned to be honest and stop trying to get him to feel sorry for me.

I took time to break the skills I had mastered in interpreting Todd’s motives. Over and over again I had to remind myself that he would not purposefully hurt me and I needed to think the best about him. After all, what did I have to lose by thinking the best, nothing, it was all gain. Every time I thought the best of him, we gained joy instead of hurt. Any error was an error in love.

Seriously, much of the pain I endured our first years of marriage was of my own making. Actually, most of the pain I felt was made up. I was making up his motives in my own mind. Now, looking back, it is clear to me how damaging this addiction was, but it took Todd sitting me down and giving me a real talking to for me to see it, call it intervention if you like. Truthfully, Todd had told me this several times before, but for some reason it got through to me that one particular day and how thankful to the Lord I am that He gave me ears to hear.

My interpretations were tearing down my husband, they did not include thinking on the good.

The first word I think of when I think of slanderous is gossip. When we are focusing on our marriage, we can say we are not to gossip about our husband.

Proverbs 16: 23,24 “A wise woman’s heart guides her mouth. Pleasant words are a honeycomb sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”

While standing in the driving way chatting with my neighbor whose husband had passed away just a few months earlier, we stumbled upon the topic of how women are quick to list their husband’s faults but ask them to name his strengths and they often stumble or grow silent. To this my neighbor added, “But try and live without him. Yes, I could only see my husband’s weaknesses while he was living. He would have been such a better man if I would have told him what he did well. Now, I can see he was a good man, too bad I didn’t let him know that when he was living.”

It is not too late for those of us that still have a husband to encourage. Choose pleasant words, both in his presence and behind his back. Instead of slander, make him grander in everyone else’s eyes. Strengthen “us” by building him up.

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to highlight points made in Titus 2: 3-5 that guide us women in how we are to live. Along with each point I will share a personal example of how God has moved in that area of my life, with hopes that some of my lessons will transfer to your lives and help you to love your husband better.

Titus 2: 3-5 "Likewise teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanders or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God."

The first point is Be Reverent in the Way They Live:

Proverbs 31: 12 says, "she brings him good and not harm all the days of his life."

Note singles, this includes you, all the days of his life does not start when you get married or even when you meet him. All the days of his life is now! Are you bringing your future spouse good with what you are doing today? You bring him good or harm by what you post online, what you wear, how you talk and with what you do. Starting now, bring him good and not harm all the days of his life.

Those of us that are married, we had a choice, we made it, now let's make it wonderful. We too must start now, bringing him good and not harm all the days of his life.

Ladies, remember, we picked our spouse. I picked Todd and he picked me! There were reasons we picked each other, we cannot forget them. I at times look back to our dating days and remember....remember what attracted us to each other, I mean besides hormones.

HIS SMILE. Yes, his smile can still melt my heart. I love to see Todd smile, so I want to do my best to make pour life worth smiling about.

HIS ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT. When we were dating Todd would pick me up and we would go for a drive. We would often end up at a state park or some tourist site; I never knew until we got there, it was exciting. He would even stop and read those historical markers along the way--I didn't know people did that. Now, today, I need to resist my home body spirit and say yes when he invites me to go for a ride, after all, who knows where we might end up.

HIS ABILITY TO STAND ALONE, and to make a decision and stand by it. He is not a people pleaser in the least. Waver is not in his vocabulary. So when I want him to "please people" and act differently, I remind myself of who he is and how much I respect this man I picked.

And he picked me. When we tell the stories about our dating years, I do wonder why he stuck with me. Yes, he picked me even though, upon his first attempt to get me to date I told him, "My Mom and I have decided I am not going to date at this time."

Another time before we were dating, he came to visit me at college to find me holding hands with another boy. wouldn't that discourage most people from more pursuit? Not my Todd. And what happened to that no dating thing?

On one of our first dates Todd took me to Lake Superior. As we sat side by side on a log skipping rocks, I managed to clock him with my rock right on the forehead. don't waste time trying to figure out how I did this, I am convinced it is an unrepeatable act.

Oh, and that's not all, another time, we went for ice cream and as I bit into my cone I realized it was stale. Without thinking it through I tipped my cone upside down trying to get the ice cream to scoot up so I could finish it without eating the cone. Instead, I had my ice cream lying on the ground at my toes.

He picked me, I love remembering that, and I picked him! Remembering helps me be reverent in the way I live.